Casting Calls on the Hillbilly Highway : a Content Analysis of Appalachian-Based Reality Television Programming. Dan Thelman Martin University of Louisville
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University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2016 Casting calls on the hillbilly highway : a content analysis of Appalachian-based reality television programming. Dan Thelman Martin University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Martin, Dan Thelman, "Casting calls on the hillbilly highway : a content analysis of Appalachian-based reality television programming." (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2435. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/2435 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CASTING CALLS ON THE HILLBILLY HIGHWAY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF APPALACHIAN-BASED REALITY TELEVISION PROGRAMMING By Dan Thelman Martin B.A., University of Kentucky, 1990 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts in Sociology Department of Sociology University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky May 2016 CASTING CALLS ON THE HILLBILLY HIGHWAY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF APPALACHIAN-BASED REALITY TELEVISION PROGRAMMING By Dan Thelman Martin B.A., University of Kentucky, 1990 A Thesis Approved on March 28, 2016 By the Following Thesis Committee: Gul A. Marshall, PhD - Thesis Chair Patricia Gagne, PhD - Second Committee Member Siobhan E. Smith, PhD - Third Committee Member ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The thesis project discussed here is a culmination of my familial life, a longtime career in audio/visual production, a fascination with American popular culture and an academic interest in studying media effects. Growing up in the Appalachian mountains in an era of “before” - as a member of the last generation before national chain stores really gained a foothold there, before the (now ubiquitous) Internet and World Wide Web made access to other cultures commonplace and before I left the mountains (and also Kentucky, only to return again, as so many of us have done), my Appalachian experience has left a distinct mark upon me. As for Appalachian people, I must recognize my “town” grandparents, Hassie and Dan Martin, with whom I lived for many years, and my “holler” grandparents, Maudie and Thelman Fugate, from whom I learned about a much more traditional way of mountain life. I am obliged to acknowledge my older sister - Dr. Lucinda Martin, whose lifelong dedication to learning and academic achievement has been inspirational. Finally, I must express some gratitude to my University of Louisville graduate school committee: Dr. Gul A. Marshall (whose kindness and generosity has left a lasting impression on me), Dr. Patricia Gagne (whose no-nonsense critical approach has pushed me to do my best) and Dr. Siobhan E. Smith (who encouraged me to embrace my subject by reinforcing her belief that “research is me-search”). Without all of these people, I would not be where I am currently - digging up cultural fossils and tracing the evolution of my Appalachia. iii ABSTRACT CASTING CALLS ON THE HILLBILLY HIGHWAY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF APPALACHIAN-BASED REALITY TELEVISION PROGRAMMING Dan Thelman Martin March 28, 2016 This analysis examines two contemporary reality television shows set in the Appalachian region of the United States - Appalachian Outlaws and Moonshiners. I contextualized the portrayals by tracing the intertwined social, political and economic factors that influenced the evolution of mediated Appalachian stereotypes since the mid-1800s. Beginning with Cultivation Theory, which holds television to be most powerful and persuasive medium available for most people, I expanded the theoretical base to consider the programs to be part of a complex intertextual phenomenon involving various media. I found stereotypes of the Appalachian region and people to be readily present in both programs, although there were some notable differences in kind and degree. Alongside a rather pronounced hegemonic masculinity, the recurring themes of homogeneity, isolation, an aversion to outsiders, feuding, the inability to join modernity, taking the law into your own hands and, most notably, violence corresponded to well-established Appalachian stereotypes. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Thesis Statement 12 Context: Appalachia as a Mountain Range 15 Context: Appalachia as a Cultural Region 23 Context: Appalachia as a Socially Constructed Idea 38 Reality Television 58 Theory 67 Methodological Design 75 Findings and Discussion - Series Introductions 85 I - Hostility to Outsiders, Inbreeding and Homogeneity 88 II - Gender, Family and Sexuality 96 III - Nature, the Environment and Coal 101 IV - Violence, Feuds and the Law 104 V - Usage of News Media Elements and Ties to Real People 114 VI - Series Narration 118 VII - Archetypes 120 Conclusion 128 References 135 Methodological Appendix 141 Curriculum Vita 161 v INTRODUCTION The Appalachian region in the United States is simultaneously a mountain range, a cultural region and a socially constructed idea. Stereotypes about the inhabitants of the region, such as being rival clans of shotgun-toting hillbillies, have been presented since the dawn of mass media. In the early twentieth century, educator John C. Campbell wrote that Appalachia was “a land about which, perhaps, more things are known that are not true than any part of our country” (Billings et al. 1999, x). This statement is arguably as true today. The idea of Appalachia along with the received stereotypes and the perceived history of the region have resulted in a vast blurring of fact and fiction about the region and its people. In one notable example, Robert Schenkkan’s 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Kentucky Cycle presented images of Appalachia that were based upon the author’s single brief trip into the region. Native Appalachian writer Gurney Norman saw the play and responded to it in a 1993 New Yorker article by stating that Appalachian people are the last group in America that it is acceptable to ridicule. Furthermore, he said, “No one would stand for it for a minute if you took any other group and held it up as an example of everything that is low and brutal and mean. But somehow it’s ok to do that with hillbillies” (Mason 1993, 61). Since this time, Reality Television (RTV) has taken over the media landscape and depicted the “real lives” of modern Appalachian people. The focus of this analysis is examining two of these contemporary programs to find out how Appalachian people are currently being portrayed and determining if there have been any substantial changes in the imagery that has typically been used to represent them. 1 As a native Appalachian-American who has studied Mass Media at the University of Kentucky as well as Sociology at the University of Louisville and has had a 25-plus year career in television production, this subject matter obviously has personal relevance. Frankly, the Appalachia that I have known contributed heavily to my interest in mass media as well as Sociology and this content analysis of Appalachian-based television programs represents something of a culmination of my life’s work and interests. That being said, the Appalachia that I personally experienced was during the period of the early 1970s through the late 1990s and was located in what is the most central part of the central Appalachian area - specifically, the coal fields in the mountainous region of far southeastern Kentucky, which include Knott, Floyd, Letcher, Perry and Pike counties. “I am from the mountains” of Eastern Kentucky, which is what people in the area tend to say (rather than anything approaching “I am Appalachian”), and have deep familial ties to the area. My first-hand knowledge of Appalachian society - the entire process of my growing up Appalachian, is based upon having two sides to my family, one “Town” family and one “Holler” family. While other researchers have explored Appalachian social structure by examining (among other things) monetary wealth, political power, family reputation and the degree of community urbanization, my Appalachian experience leads me toward a much more basic social structure, one based on an identification with place. While admittedly an oversimplified, I suggest this two-part social structure (with an “us and them” duality) reflects the inherently dichotomous nature of the mediated stereotypes which this analysis examines and points to the larger societal class structure in America. Furthermore, the perceived differences between these two sides of the internal social fabric of mountain society, as I have described them, can serve as an 2 example of the hegemonic ideological mechanism moving vertically through our mass American culture. Just as some “holler folk” are ostracized by some “town folk” within the region, both of them in combination (as being a part of a perceived “rural America”) are ostracized by urban Americans, creating something of a “hierarchy of otherness” within the region and in America overall. Of course, “otherness” or “apartness” is a political creation - a semantic